Locations: Meridian, its surroundings, and the Temple of the Two Suns upon the Lake of the Tanglelight Forest, on the Continent
Participants:
Ishka'tar,
Saorie Tylmae,
Mesper Sorgowin, and Scrambles
Loose Threads
Short summary:
The Guild Adventurers are searching for the Rainbow Knights, powerful
Fey protectors who need to be told about the Lost City, stuck
In-Between, so that the city could be returned to the Material Plane.
This search brings them to the City of Meridian, where Midday Meal Mayhem is taking place, and where the Gilded Knight and
the Purple Knight are making an appearance. But trouble is afoot, and the
event is plagued by misfortune – and by a Daemon of Famine.
The Adventurers team up with a Unknown named Heidrun and her Familiar Ratatouille, with the goal of collecting the rarest and tastiest ingredients, but almost die every step of the way (though one brave boar is not so lucky, RIP Bacon II). Nevertheless, they make a lot of new friends, thwart daemonically handsome enemy, and win the competition, allowing them to inform the two Knights of the Lost City!
Full Report (Saorie)
Traveling to Meridian
Our quest was long and arduous, perhaps the most difficult any of us have ever
faced. But we had a simple mission: inform each member of the noble
Rainbow Knights about the current location of lost
Fey
city know as
The Last, the location of which we
learned about on
our prior quest.
Fortunately, a scaled
Sprite
named
Lady Nacrea magically appeared out from a tree we had gathered under in
First Landing, and delivered us a message from
Lord Attys and
Lady Vesper. It was a formal invitation to participate in the Biennial Festival
of the Midday Meal Mayhem (or MMM for short), which was to be held in
the city of
Meridian located in the Tanglelight Forest. Before she left,
Lady Nacrea mentioned she was asking for
Zinlynndise Imare, a fact none of us dreamed of forgetting.
As directed, we headed off to the
Elemental Portal Shrine and quickly arrived at the
Temple of the Two Suns, where we had some lovely conversations with
Elgie,
Beety, and Xamak. The latter shared that they were guards that
protect the temple from being destroyed again, as well as ensuring
nothing dangerous broke through any of the portals.
Beety was apparently killed (during the quest A Sphere? Oh Dear) by members of the Guild, and both he and
Elgie
had a good sense of humour, and were a little disappointed not to be important
enough to be invited to the MMM.
Marsyas the Boatman arrived soon, playing his panflute with grace and poise, and graciously
welcomed us aboard his enchanted ship. He kindly informed us of the
traditions and politics surrounding the MMM, as he expertly navigated his ship
through the waters, though our conversation only seemed to reinforce how
important clout was to the Fey. We arrived at the beautiful city of
Meridian without issue, and noted that
Marsyas stepped onto the dock without hesitation.
Ishka'tar also informed us how she was responsible for recently foiling one of
Lady Vesper's plots, and told us to be on our guard. Marsyas guided us up the sloping streets, and let us know to present our
invitation at the Castle.
Once inside, I, Sorry, took the lead of checking us in with the receptionist,
Samira Moonwing. It turned out she was just temporarily filling in this position, and let some
bad habits slip, such as the asking and stealing of names. She was very
apologetic and promised to make things right and was quite
sweet. Some of her bats led us to our rooms, which were magically
furnished to best suit our wishes. Belladonna was slightly unnerved when she discovered
a note her room that said, "I know," but otherwise everything
was perfect. Well, except for the fact the festivities were
incredibly loud, making getting a good nights sleep a bit of challenge,
especially for our dutiful champion, Hungry.
Day 1 in Meridian: The Wreckoning
Breakfast
The group woke up mostly refreshed, and met up with
Samira Moonwing, who returned the pages with our names to us. I detected some foul play afoot,
and we deduced that someone has stolen one of our names, copying the name down
when Samira was distracted at the front desk [1].
She also disclosed to the
group strange happenings that have been occurring in the city: missing people,
spoiled food. After we asked for our names back, Belladonna ensured that the page with names was destroyed, and helped the less
fashionable among the group look presentable.
We entered the banquet hall and took our place of honour at the middle table.
Before we were able to chat,
Pranke made her grand entrance, singing a most upbeat and lively tune that
very well might revolutionise music itself. A tune that yours truly has
recorded and will gladly share... for a price. Scrambles
was more skeptical of Pranke's whole concept, and gladly offered the group
Elixirs. Just then, the two Knights arrived: the affable Purple Knight, and the distant
but still regal Gilded Knight.
The team split up to converse with the different honoured
guests. Belladonna chatted
with the heads of the Purple Knights team – Lady Nacrea of
Dreamwaters, and the innkeeper from
Visage, Ampella. The latter shared that the
Republic of Jagriarius is seeking the Fey's land for its resources. And there was something
tragic that happened with someone called the Malachite Maid.
Ampella also noted the curious leadership structure of
Meridian, being a rarely-meeting yet still somehow chaotic Council. But
neither of them had any clues about the source of the corruption and
destruction.
I chatted
with
Samira Moonwing, lead chef on the Gilded Knight's team, learning that Samira ran a holiday
resort in
Avilion, the Golden Barony. She was very impressed with my prior meetings with the Knights. Samira also further reinforced the idea that the Fey run on a clout-based
economy, and suggested we might need to somehow win the MMM in order to gain an
audience with the Knights. Apparently, she runs a friendly competition with Ampella, and has a cousin who acts as her bodyguard.
At the middle table,
Scrambles did not understand vegetarian food, and there was an... interesting red Unknown called Scorch that was a part of Pranke's entourage.
Scrambles also learned more about the best pizza on Pranke's menu, the Pranke Pizza Party, which does consist of
Pranke on the pizza somehow. The rest of the group met Heidrun, who insisted we would not be friends (spoiler alert, she was wrong)!
Sensing an opportunity for mutual benefit, we decided to team up, and headed to
her kitchen. She laid out her menu and the ingredients we all needed to
collect.
Heidrun also had no idea about the Lost City, which certainly was strange.
A Great Mis-Steak
Our first item on our list was meat, conveniently located downstairs. Except,
we learned, the door was jammed shut for some reason. We concocted a brilliant plan
to rappel out the window to the butcher. Thanks to
Hungry, we made it down without issue, but encountered something truly horrible.
We proceeded to get tenderized by meat Golems and sickened by rancid broth.
Honestly, we almost died. But slowly, we learned. The meat was a sort of Carrion Golem, but made of fresh, delicious meat, and seemed to be healed by electricity, hurt extra by eating it and cooking it further, and slowed by cold damage. The broth had no sense of justice, choosing violence every
chance it could. We ultimately prevailed, despite most folks taking a few
brief naps. (Bacon nap count = 2).
Once the chaos died down and our stomachs settled, we did some quick
investigation. Belladonna realised the broth was a variant form of a Squirming Swill, but made of once-delicious broth and gravy. She also spotted a ritual circle featuring fearful,
unholy runes that were used to corrupt the meat. We investigated the door
that normally connected the butchery to Heidrun's kitchen, and discovered that it was magically locked. I found one of the keys to
the locked door in the Staff room and proceeded to deftly unlock the door.
Right before we were about to open the door, the untrusting 3-foot tall butcher
threatened Bacon. The Redcap butcher was a true misanthrope (misfeythrope?) who
really hated every moment of our conversation. But for some reason, he
insisted the previously ultra-magically locked door that revealed a cob-web
laden passage way was used every day [2].
He also was going to have a word
with the council in response to the sabotage of his meat. Right before we
left, we learned that his name was Powrie.
Beefriending Bees
We set out to get replacement meat by following
Ratatouille's suggestion to seek out the Epimeliad that
Heidrun obtained the original lamb from. We attempted to track them down, but
got a little lost. We saw clawed tracks strangely [3] and, even more
importantly, find some bees.
Luckily we needed honey! I surmised that we might have been dealing with Giant Mining Bees, so we decided to be super stealthy. But even
with all my expertise and Belladonna's
invisibility sphere, we got tripped up with a trap that sprayed us with
hallucinogenic powder. This powder made Hungry a
little confused. Scrambles noticed a curious Fey creature: short and chubby, covered in
bark, leaves, and moss, with an exposed honeycomb in their chest and many
smaller bees flitting about. More confusion and hijinks ensued, which
eventually alerted the bees, which were quite formidable.
The not-Unknown (Neshy) charged out and communicated in sign language. I was able to start to make some sense of things, something about discord, but
still expertly started to defuse the tension. But some Bacon went down again
and Scrambles and Belladonna noped out
of danger, bringing Bacon and Hungry with
them. We learned that something was deeply wrong, Neshy and the bees seemingly
at war with themselves. But, with a flash of insight, I realises Neshy wasbactually an Eeko, a living bush... well, a living hive surrounded by plant
material with super delicious honey cores. Realizing they also loved stories
and singing, I regaled them with a song as I vaporised a naughty bee. The rest
of the party rejoined our fight, but we soon learned the Eeko was still
fighting itself. We worked together to allow the Eeko to take a quick nap.
(Bacon nap count +2, total = 4).
With the aid of my improved medicine skills I picked up in the Clinic, plus my
beautiful, life-giving necklace, I was able to get Neshy patched right up.
Neshy was quite sweet and proved they had impeccable taste and also shared
their name,
Children of Many Visions
(or Children of Many Beauties as I like to call them). They mentioned how they
came here with friends from far away and that they were unsettled by bad
flowers that, when collected by the bees, caused disorder and discord among
them.
We later learned that this friend was His Sweetness Rigatoni who brought the Children here when he retired. |
I generously offered our assistance to remove some of the bad flowers
nearby, as well as a grand tale of how we managed to find the Lost City in the
first place, in exchange for part of COMB's honey. Bacon
and Belladonna enjoyed some
of the hive's honey, perhaps a little too much, as the rest of us found some of
the bad flowers. The flowers appeared to be
Mindfuddle Blooms, flowers from the Old World that normally produce hallucinogenic pollen. These specific flower though seemed to be a separate lineage somehow, as if they evolved differently than the one
in the Old World, or something? And the bad ones seemed to smell rotten,
affected by a sickness of some kind that withered their roots and corrupted them. We collected some of the bad ones for later analysis and destroyed the rest
nearby the hive, giving it at least a little time of safety before they
encroached again [4].
COMB generously offered us a part of their honey-heart and also offered to guide us
to the elusive Epimeliad.
Lost Little Lambs
Following COMB’s adorable little bees, we backtracked, finding the sheep tracks and
better, clawed tracks again (see Note 3). We made it to a clearing in the cliffside
forest featuring a flock of fluffy, white-wooled sheep grazing around a
single apple tree. Nearby there were some upright, smooth stones of unknown
function that may or may not be important. The inebriated among us sobered up
and Belladonna and I had a small disagreement about how Epimeliads like to hide. While
I totally trusted her expert opinion on the matter, Hungry and I checked out the cliff (by effortlessly climbing it) just be sure. Finding a nice view, we returned to the others and decided to check out the
flock.
The eagle-eyed Scrambles notices one of the sheep is not like the other, so we decide to say
hello. There was a really strange effect protected the flock that made some
of us unsteady and got Hungry all turned around. The Shepherdess reveals herself to be a beautiful but bashful Nymph who was reassured by the
fact we were besties with the Children of Many Visions. She mentions how she is kinda lonely and not a fan of how many who seek her
out just want to take some wool rather than chat. And not only that, it seems
there is some sort of beast [3] that somehow tracks her and her flock down no
matter how many times they move. They mention it leaves tracks like an upright bear and seems to strike
during the full moon. I wonder if its a ghost were-bear, since it somehow
avoids the Lamaia's attention, but she mentions that the
Children of Many Visions saw it just fine, plus, you know, the tracks and all.
Belladonna recalls even more about were-bears, like how some that are bitten might
not even know they were cursed.*
Ratatouille says hello and we all mention how the previous sheep was turned into a
terrible meat golem that tried to kill us all. Lamaia is distraught that her baby was wasted and rightfully does not want any
more of her flock to be given away in vain.
Scrambles, the expert chef he is, really convinces her of our integrity as culinary
stewards and we successfully pick out a juicy-looking sheep. I offer to
potentially come back to go monster hunting, but it seems she is a pacifist at heart.** We let the sheep live out out its last hours
to the fullest and make it back to
Powrie, who still doesn’t really like to chat and totally doubted our
abilities.
*Somehow we didn’t figure this puzzle out at the time, but Lamaia is totally a were-bear.
** Except on a full-moon apparently.
Milking Mayhem
We easily head up the now cleaned passageway to
Heidrun’s kitchen and drop off the honey. We also ask her to look at the corrupted
plants. It seems they were the result of the Blight Ritual, but with a
distinctive divine smell to them.At
Heidrun’s suggestion, I smell a corrupted flower with no protection, but it was not
pleasant! Felt like it was trying to such the life right out of me and make me
fatigued. Luckily, I am quite resilient! I mention the plight of the poor Shepherdess, but
Heidrun doesn’t seem too concerned. I also bring up the whole broken Moon
business and potential evil goddess. Again,
Heidrun is nonplussed and remarks that having some competition for
Lady Vesper and
Lord Attys is overdue in her opinion.
Next on the agenda was goat milk and cheese. I do not want to upset my dear
readers, so I will simply say collecting this incredible one-of-a-kind milk
was a true team effort!
Heidrun offers some healing supplies for those of us who emerged from the
ordeal slightly worse for wear and went back to start the cheese-making
process.
Kitchen Kerfuffle
I want to just start by saying this: we touched nothing!
We hear a strange voice* chanting some sort of prayer in Aklo. Despite
impressive attempts to distract the scoundrel, suddenly, the kitchenware
becomes a swirling tempest and the oven sprouts legs. Oh, and the cauldron
starts shrieking and barrels of yeasty dough spring to life, with a pot for a
head. The cauldron tries to convince us to let him out, that he won't steal
again, all while still screaming bloody murder. Meanwhile, the rest of the
kitchen performs actual bloody murder while the Aklo chanter continues to
describe how he is going to get us in our dreams and send swarms and hordes
and locusts to eat everything green.
Hungry finds the oven a tad too hot while I do my best to calm down the stupid cauldron. Things keep getting worse
and worse, but the oven breaks a hole in the wall and we all, somehow,
manage to escape... Well almost everyone. Sadly, Bacon II was no more. A pig
in a yeasty blanket.
Heidrun is rightfully flummoxed, but manages to calm down the kitchen. We mourn
Bacon II and
Scrambles vows icey-cold revenge. Heidrun berates her cauldron, who blamed his disobedience on the Aklo speaking
chanter and
Ratatouille explains the sewers that the chanter was in are ancient and mostly
untouched by the Fey.
Heidrun becomes more distraught, fearing our chances of success were dashed,
but we refused to give up. We are directed to make a quick errand to
Khorasan, a baker, and head off.
*In hindsight, the voice was totally Kwashior
The Barking Baker
We quickly made it to Khorasan’s bakery, which seems to be filled with
baked goods, and strangely enough, random crap. We call out to the baker,
who responds with a bark, despite his feline appearance. He acted very
strangely when we mentioned the sewers and Aklo chanter and was rather
focused on his payment. We convinced him we had many talents, many of
which could serve quite as well as payment, so he led us to a back room.
We were a little surprised when he simply wanted us to be taste testers.
Fey expert Belladonna gave us all the go ahead to sample the
baker’s treats and we are all given elaborate menus. Khorasan also
mentioned how it seems the MMM was rigged, since only the Purple or Golden
teams win. That and he’s just too talented or something.
I choose a steak cake, Hungry goes for a blueberry scroll,
Scrambles selects something for later that is good cold and pairs well
with meat, and Belladonna picks something with cinnamon. The
perhaps overly exuberant baker returns with all our treats and a lot of
words but truly delivers the goods as well as the ingredients we
need.
However, curiously, the baker offers us more yeast despite us not asking
for more. When confronted, he folded like a sad house of cards. He told a
sob story of how he was coerced by rats and a voice that had plague in its
voice, whatever that means. Heidrun made a grand entrance and got even
more information out of the barking baker. Like how the rats had teeth
like jackals, multiple heads, no eyes, and how they spoke to him. How he
mixed dust in some of the yeast he delivered. And how the voice mentioned
how he would spoil all the food in this land and make everyone hunger
forever and learn of true famine. The baker also mentioned how he stuck a
deal with this villain: sabotaging Heidrun in exchange for his own
safety.
We gather the supplies and the satchel of evidence the cowardly barker
collected so kindly for us and departed. On the way back, Scrambles surmises that a heartened spell that petrifies food and drink would have
the ability to effect alchemical regents, such as the oozing yeast.
Hungry realizes that jackal heads and gross flesh is associated
with the Horseman of Famine. In the Old World at least, he went by
Trelmarixian [5].
Camaraderie in the Kitchen
We are greeted by a heartening sight as we return to the kitchen: all of our competitors helping repair Heidrun’s kitchen, such as Lady Nacrea and Samira Moonwing. We hand Heidrun the bag and Hungry shares his knowledge of how Famine might be behind all this. At Heidrun’s suggestion, we offer the satchel, corrupted plants, and related info to Samira Moonwing and Lady Nacrea and ask them to inform The Rainbow Knights [Players] of the potential culprit. Heidrun also promises to have her sister, Olera, share why she is so desperate to win the competition. We head back to the Castle, ask our rooms to be quiet (who would have thought to do that?) and get a good nights sleep.
Day 2: More Pain, More Gain
Meeting the Family (and Foe)
Refreshed, we head to the mostly restored kitchen and then head off to chat with Olera to learn more about Chip. Ratatouille leads the way and mentions how a prince is staying with them and to be polite.
We arrive at a cozy cottage and are introduced to everyone, including His Sweetness, Prince Rigatoni. Olera shares how Chip is dying and needs a new body. But making a new body is no easy feat. So the goal is to win the MMM and have Purple and Gilded Knight bless the grove that is growing Chip’s new body. That blessing should provide enough primal energy to allow a Leshy spirit to inhabit the new body. Rigatoni is quite inspired by this tale and quips how his own family kinda sucks. A Chip Off the Old Block Will Blossom Anew also manages to say hello and says how Heidrun is both their sister and mother; apparently she and her own mother made his body and planted Olera’s ancient seed way back. Although Heidrun’s mother died some time ago.
Olera mentions she is a Ghoran, which I remember are sentient plants that were originally made to be food but rose up (quite literally) to defend themselves despite being super delicious still. And whose souls and memories are contained in their seeds, which are continually replanted generation after generation. Sadly though, they only can reincarnate from existing souls and cannot create new ones. With this information in mind, I better understand what Olera means when she says she plans to offer a part of herself to help us win.
Things were a little dicey, but again, so as not to offend any of those with weak constitutions, we were successful in retrieving more ingredients. Suffice it to say, I am quite talented with tying knots, Hungry can really hold things down and take control of a situation, and Scrambles is an expert with make precise and powerful thrusts.
Olera rightfully needed to rest and recover but it seems like there was even more commotion upstairs. We hear the noise in Chip’s room and quickly head inside where we saw Rigatoni fending off gross rats from hurting Chip. We all lend our aid and defeat the rats, capturing one. Belladonna uses a scroll to speak with the hideous rat, who seemed quite obsessed with feasting on the world as everyone starves. Belladonna also detected the rat being affected by both enchantment and transmutation magics.
When we try to get its Master’s name, the entity itself spoke out through the rats. He was quite haughty and gave a name that made Chip’s full name seem short. Famine said he was super old and big and was really obsessed with us being hungry. I manage to cox out his third name, though he wanted me to offer three lives for that ‘gift’. I suggested the barking baker, but he didn’t seem satisfied with that answer. Also, the conversation was also really taxing to the rat who infected some of us a bit more, which was quite unpleasant! He said he would choose three victims and that his name was Kwashior. Also some of us were upgraded from stains to morsels!
A Thorny Situation
Collect some things from the garden she said. It will be easy he said. Lies! The fruits were actually mimic bugs (Sportlebores apparently*) of some kind and there was an ornery Drainberry bush that literally drained our life away and put it in quite tasty berries. The bush was also able to attack and grab all of us at once over and over and over while the bugs swarmed us. Even with Rigatoni, we almost died just trying to escape!
*We later realized these nefarious vermin trick people into eating them and then reproduce in the victims stomach before get thrown up as a now angry swarm that tries to eat its victims. Also, it is resistant to most physical damage but weak to attacks that cover a wide area, like a bomb.
Parlay with the Beast
We returned with Heidrun who was a bit perplexed as why the Drainberry bush, who was the caretaker of her garden, was acting up. Apparently, someone who looked exactly like Heidrun stole some of the Drainberry’s precious trinkets [6]. I managed to help smooth things over by offering one of my most prized and precious possessions along with many of its potential uses. Everyone else offered a trinket as well and I am pretty sure Heidrun was impressed by my ingenuity! We dispatch most of the Sportlebores [7] and collect the normal fruit this time.
Final Preparations
Thankfully, getting the spice and eggs was not a near-death experience. Who would have thought?! We return to the kitchen and help Heidrun finish the rest of the meals. We also have a nice chat with the Cauldron, who we learn was a Boggard named Polywogg that stole from Heidrun one too many times, and who might have developed a bit of a need for Heidrun’s greens. With a bit of counseling, a true dialog between chef and cauldron was established [8].
True Mayhem at the Midday Meal
Everything was going pretty well, with no signs of any rats or Famine. The four judges, Horai, do a fair job assessing all the fine meals (though Scrambles was a bit more discerning and offered delightful color commentary, completely roasting Samira Moonwing's little mishap with the salad).
Heidrun introduces the delectable Canapes made with the special milk. Scrambles showed he was as talented with words as with food when he described the mouth-watering crown of lamb, truly the prince of meats. I was told a tale of love and friendship. How we were gifted COMB's heart and used it to make the most wonderful baklava. And finally, Heidrun shared the story of A Chip Off the Old Block Will Blossom Anew and how Olera shared part of herself to make their dreams come true.
However, all was not well for long. Hungry and I spot sneaky, gross rats doing something weird; tracing the same ritual circle we saw made the meat golems. I suggest we all go for a nice dance and we all convince lots of others to join in on the fun, completely messing with the rats plans. Samira Moonwing and Lady Nacrea were dancing too, but then they started to feel ill and sat down. Heidrun and Olera were prepared and brought potions and herbs and we were able to help save Samira Moonwing and Lady Nacrea's lives, though they got weird tattoos, a III and II respectively. We surmise they were meant to be the second and third victims of Kwashior.
We wondered for a moment who the first victim was before the Winter Hora erupts in a swarm of rats. The whole hall goes mad, everyone fighting off the rats. Magic and sword flying. I also learned the rats were not affected by holy water for watever that's worth. Kwashior speaks through a rat and seemed quite pleased for some dumb reason. He monologued, speaking from different rats as each prior one got squished. He mentioned I was not his type and that the Knights would not be able to save us. As he spoke, more and more rats approached and stared at me, looming over me. I held my ground as they formed a solid mass and Kwashior graced us with his presence.
I will not sugar-coat this my dear readers... Kwashior is quite attractive. He is tall and has four large lupine heads, though only his third head spoke. He mentioned having kin that commanded pestilence. He also wanted to ravish us and have us delay his gratification until he could almost not bear it. Fortunately he is patient, so I figured most of use could thwart his plans again, schedule permitting. We also learn Kwashior is not a god, though he offers to be my god.
Moments later, the two formerly sleeping beauties arrive and Kwashior offers a bow and told me to take care so he could destroy me later. The two Knights start to beat Kwashior, and we all join in the fun. Soon enough, Kwashior fades away and the Knights dispatch folks to root out the remaining rats.
As things calm down, the judges deliver their verdict. We won!
As a reward, we chat with the Gilded Knight and Purple Knight. Somehow, neither of them remembered the Lost City [9]. And the Gilded Knight had a very low opinion of the Black Knight but was partially assuaged at the mention of the Orange Knight's involvement. The Purple Knight mentioned the clearing was in Lord Attys' domain. I showed them the current location of The Last and the Purple Knight was kind enough to mention the location of two additional knights. Both happen to reside in the Tanglelight Forest, with the Green Knight haunting the his and cliffs of The Copper Mountain and the Azure Knight stays in the waters of the nearby Lake.
The Knights promise to help A Chip Off the Old Block Will Blossom Anew and the ritual is due by the end of the week [10]. We happily accept gifts and thanks and return back home.